Eyre Bird Observatory helps to heal wounds of bushfire and personal grief
By Hayden Smith and Emily JB Smith
Landline
Topic:Human Interest
13m ago13 minutes agoSun 30 Mar 2025 at 2:26am
A woman smiles in a bush setting. She wears an Akubra hat and a backpack.
Christina Sobey says the bush and birds help her find peace. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
Christina Sobey sat alone in her home.
More than a year after losing her husband, the 79-year-old's days were heavy and repetitive.
With another long, hot summer looming, she knew it was time to act.
"I needed to cut the circuit of grieving … start afresh," Ms Sobey said.
In the back of her mind was a destination, though it was some 2,500 kilometres away from her home in Albury-Wodonga, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria.
A small bird is perched on a sign.
Ms Sobey wanted to start afresh with a journey across Australia. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
"It's too far, I can't go, I can't go," she thought at first.
"But of course I settled down and thought, 'This is going to be a good test.'"
She had her health checked and car serviced before heading west.
Comforted by some makeshift curtains, she slept in the back of her blue station wagon.
Pink cockatoos sit on a wire.
Pink cockatoos at Ms Sobey's destination: the Eyre Bird Observatory in WA. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
Upon reaching the Nullarbor Plain, she lost her main companion, ABC Radio, so she kept alert by chewing gum.
Finally, just before Western Australia's Eyre Highway outpost of Cocklebiddy, she turned left onto an old gravel road.
"It was a devilishly long way and by the time I got here I was pretty exhausted,"
Ms Sobey said.
The historic Eyre Bird Observatory (EBO) had long been on the environmentalist's to-do list.
Her timing was uncanny, with Australia's oldest and most remote bird research station undergoing a healing process of its own.
Loss of bush and birdlife
Over the decades, more than 200 bird species have been recorded at the EBO, which is wedged between Western Australia's remote south coast and arid Nullarbor Plain.
Originally a station on the Trans-Australian Telegraph Line, the remote property is now a known ornithological hotspot.
A timber sign reads "Welcome to Eyre Bird Observatory, Wonundra".
The observatory is Australia's oldest and most remote bird research station. (ABC News: Emily Smith)
But for several years, the landscape has carried scars.
In late 2016, a dry lightning strike sparked a large bushfire that tore through swathes of native vegetation and even threatened the observatory’s historic limestone homestead.
"The 2016 fire came as a shock to us all," said Peter Sandilands, who first visited the EBO in 1990 and has returned about 25 times since.
A man in a long-sleeved khaki shirt stands in front of a building and smiles.
Peter Sandilands has been to the bird observatory about 25 times since 1990. (ABC News: Emily Smith)
"We are used to dry lightning across Australia, but that year was particularly bad across the Nullarbor … and being remote, it was hard to get to."
The initial impact on birdlife was also significant.
"Records at the time indicated that many hundreds, if not thousands, of birds had flown out to sea and drowned in front of the fire,"
he said.
Eight years later, Mr Sandilands led a course that explored the ancient environment's recovery over time.
Three people stand in a landscape of long, dry grass.
Mr Sandilands (left) oversaw a course that inspected the area's recovery from the 2016 bushfire. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
He traces his passion for birds back to when he was a schoolboy.
His father bought him a renowned and influential book with a front cover featuring a kookaburra perched inside a giant question mark.
"As many people of my generation would have known, there was a book called What Bird Is That? by Neville W. Cayley," he said.
"Although I don't use it anymore, it's still in my library today."
A man wearing an Akubra-style hat and binoculars looks down as he writes in a notepad.
Mr Sandilands has high hopes for the vegetation and birdlife. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
'Natural laboratory'
Half a dozen birdwatchers and two journalists trudge through spear grass and dirt.
Most eyes are fixed upward, binoculars and long-lens cameras working hard to pinpoint the elusive wild budgerigar.
"That's them!" someone cries, pointing at a distant tree branch.
But in the blink of an eye, the tiny birds are gone.
Two wild budgies sit in a tree.
At the observatory, wild budgerigars come and go in a flash. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
Still, the brief sighting pleased Mr Sandilands, who said a number of species still hadn't returned since the bushfire.
"Particularly the smaller insectivores and a lot of the honeyeaters," he said.
"Ground-dwelling birds are missing almost completely. Things like quail-thrushes and the malleefowl.
"We're taking previous records of what was there and trying to gauge what has returned from outlying areas into the revegetation."
A python slithers across a dirt road.
The observatory is home to much more than birds. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
Despite the missing birds, he was pleased with the amount of regrowth.
"We've been lucky in those eight years to have good rains most years … that has enabled the vegetation to build up," he said.
"Now we have vegetation waiting for birds, rather than them both trying to come back at the same time.
"We're hopeful it will get back to pretty close to what it was."
Mr Sandilands said they were treating the area around the Eyre Bird Observatory as a "natural laboratory".
"Most damaged lands these days have human intervention," he said.
"With this one, everything is just left to go as it should be."
A woman leans against a car and wears an Akubra hat decorated with small dolls.
Ms Sobey and her "dancing girls" hat. (ABC News: Hayden Smith)
'Get away from it'
Several small and colourful dolls have been stitched onto Ms Sobey's Akubra.
"I call them my dancing girls," she said.
"So people know there's a lady underneath."
Speaking after a long day of twitching in the sun, she said the "sheer desolation" of the landscape had "boggled" her.
But for Ms Sobey, who has previously run as a Greens candidate for the federal seat of Farrer, the bush is the perfect escape from the "disappointment" of humanity.
"To get away from the wretched news and all that’s going on [abroad], it's nice to just get into it for a week or so," she said.
After some "tough" years in her personal life, Ms Sobey said she was pleased to have made the cross-country expedition.
"I'm very proud," she said.
"Now I have to turn around and go home."
A woman wearing a colourful shirt and white trousers sits smiling on a timber deck.
Ms Sobey has renewed confidence after her cross-country adventure. (ABC News: Emily Smith)
Ms Sobey's long return journey went without a hitch, until she ran out of petrol about 10km from her house.
Still, speaking to the ABC several weeks after finally reaching home, she said the experience was transformative and had filled her with renewed confidence.
"It's like all the grief I was feeling has been left behind," she said.
"I'm ready to start a whole new chapter … it's a good feeling."
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Posted13m ago13 minutes agoSun 30 Mar 2025 at 2:26am
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